A Day in the Country
by carriebess
Summary: Cesare and Lucrezia spend a day in the country with unexpected consequences.


"Where are you off to this morning my son?" Rodrigo Borgia asked Cesare. They stood in a dusty courtyard off the Vatican just as the sun had finished burning off the mists of dawn. Cesare was dressed in his usual black leather garb and he carried a hunting bow and quiver as he waited for Micheletto to bring the horses.

"I am taking Lucrezia riding and then we are dining with our mother." He looked across the courtyard and he could just see his sister walking toward them. She was a vision of ethereal loveliness in the bright sunshine. Her brown hunting dress swirled around her ankles and her long hair was caught in a net. Her smile was of such transcendent beauty that all who were graced by it seemed compelled to smile in return. Lucrezia greeted her father with a kiss on the cheek. When she turned to her brother her smile was similarly sweet but there was a look in her eyes that echoed the heat that she sent coursing through him.

The days since they had become lovers had been both the happiest and the most difficult in his life. She came to him as often as she could at night but they were bound more rigidly by propriety than ever before during the day. He could no longer visit her openly in her rooms and to be with her in company was to risk sandal. He could not seem to help touching her and the heat that rose between them was palpable. The evening meal last night had almost undone him.

"Let us dance a _pavane_ with our quests this evening." Rodrigo had merrily ordered. So they had danced together, touching always, and although he could imagine the whispers it would cause he could not make his body move a respectable distance away from her. He made love to her dancing, and the heightened color in her cheeks and the softness of her hands brushing him as they danced roused him still further. As the dance ended his eyes held hers much longer than was necessary and Cesare had to bite back the urge to kiss her in front of all and claim her, damn the consequences. Whispered conversations seem to follow them as he led her back to her seat.

And her bastard coward of a husband was set to return in just a few days.

"Are you ready to leave, brother?" she asked him after she gently kissed his cheek in greeting. "Father, Cesare is taking me away from the noise of Rome for a day."

"That is an excellent idea, my dear. Just the thing to put some color on your cheeks before your husband returns. You will take a guard, Cesare?" Rodrigo Borgia asked. The safety of his remaining children was his primary concern.

"Micheletto." Cesare answered, motioning the man forward with the horses. He checked Lucrezia's saddle before helping her onto the magnificent white gelding. His dark stallion seemed to share his master's impatience and Cesare could barely restrain him as they said their final goodbyes and rode through town.

The early morning sunshine was exceptionally bright. After they cleared the wall of the city Cesare turned to Lucrezia "Are you ready for a gallop, sister?"

"Oh yes, I have been longing for some exercise for days." She smiled up at him wickedly, relishing the double meaning of her words. "And I do ride very well, as you should remember."

Cesare's breath caught at the memory her words invoked. She had snuck away to see him three days before and they had been so hungry for each other that her fine gown had barely escaped intact. She had pushed him to the floor and made love to him so hungrily that he bore the marks of her fingernails still. He reached over and brought her hand up to his mouth so he could place a kiss in her palm. "Then we should be off before I take you up against the walls of the city."

With a laugh she kicked her horse into a full gallop. She was so lovely that he was tempted to just watch for a second but she would tease him unmercifully if she won. Together they galloped through the countryside before coming to serene wooded area far from the main road.

"Oh, you and that beast are cheaters! How can we hope to compete with two black devils?" Lucrezia was out of breath and pink cheeked. She patted the neck of her lathered horse after Cesare lifted her down.

"Micheletto, see to the horses." Cesare tossed the reigns to his servant when the man joined them a second later. He grabbed Lucrezia's gloved hand and dragged her to a stand of trees that was deeper in the forest. In the shadow of giant pine he turned and grasped her shoulders and pressed her back against the tree.

"I am starved for you," he growled before his mouth hungrily took hers. His tongue was a restless presence in her mouth. He picked her up to equalize their heights and ground his thighs between her legs. She groaned into his mouth as she felt his hardness through layers of skirts.

"Now, now. I ache for you." Lucrezia was every bit the impatient lover that he was. He held her up with one arm curled around her waist and unlaced the codpiece that could not constrain his erection. She rucked her skirts up and wrapped her legs around his waist so that he could slide home inside of her.

"Yes." She moaned before taking his lips again. Her restless hips urged him forward and he thrust into her again and again. Lucrezia had been in a near constant state of arousal for days. She tried to keep her eyes open so that she could see how his lovely brown eyes danced with golden lights when he was inside of her but the sensations that flooded through her body were too intense.

"Open your eyes." He rasped in her ear. "Look at what you do to me." He used one hand to pluck the pins out of her hair so that it unwound over her breasts. He tangled his fingers in the golden locks and brought her forehead to rest against his. He pressed her back harder into the tree and she could feel the rough bark catching on her dress and the texture of it, imprinted on her flesh, only served to heighten her awareness of his driving presence inside of her body. Lucrezia's eyes blazed into his and he could see in them the moment when she went over and lost herself in pleasure. He tried to restrain himself so that he could bring her again but he was helpless to resist the call of his body. He emptied into her with a groan that started in his throat.

"I am like a callow youth with you." He lamented, brushing her skirts down. "As soon as I see you all I can think of is taking you like a stallion in heat." He carried her to a place where a gap in the trees let in some sunshine. He took off his cloak and laid it on the ground for her. Lucrezia reclined upon it, enjoying the sensations that still rippled through her body and the feeling of Cesare's arms around her a second later.

"Knowing that you were going to take me like this is the only thing that has kept me sane these last few days. It's madness, what you do to me." She whispered.

The sunshine was putting Cesare into a drowsy stupor and he rested his head against her breasts. This is the only place I am at peace, he thought, surrendering to contentment. Lucrezia had already fallen asleep and he followed her, secure in the knowledge that they were watched over by a man deadlier than any enemy who could chance upon them.

"Why are there still shadows under your eyes my love?" Cesare asked her later when they had woken but still lay in each other's arms.

"My rest has been...disturbed for the past nights" Her smile was no longer as gay as it had been at the beginning of the day and she seemed uncharacteristically melancholy as she put her head on his shoulder.

"By what?"

"Nothing of importance," she reassured him.

"It must be or your eyes would not look so sad in this moment. I would have you full of nothing but joy. Tell me what troubles you."

Lucrezia's eyes filled with tears for a second before she ruthlessly blinked them away. "I have awoken in the middle of the night these past days because my hands were searching for you. What can it mean that my body laments your absence when you are gone? When we are together we love but my arms are still trying to find you in sleep." The tears were falling now, and she had never been more beautiful to him.

"I do not know," he lied. Cesare did, of course, know the answer but he would not burden her with knowledge that would only cause her pain.

"Liar. But I also know the truth. How cruel is fate that I have been allowed to know love but to never be able to show it?"

There were no words of his that could console her because he agreed; fate had indeed been cruel to them. The only person that he could ever love, his equal, was the one person that was denied to him. "You can show it to me. "

She smiled at him. "I love you." These words from her lips were not new. They had always loved one another, but the painful, passionate devotion that had sprung between them felt like her heart was being ripped out of her chest.

"And I love you." He lifted her face in his hands and brushed her tears away with his thumbs. He bent down and kissed her lips tenderly, and then simply held her until the tears stopped.

Micheletto thought that they made a beautiful pair, arms wrapped around each other in the sunshine that gilded the lady's hair. He had allowed himself to glimpse them for a second as they coupled under the tree and although the sight of his master's ass as he thrust into the lady had been arousing, he could feel no jealousy. They, after all, risked as much as he did with love. When he had first learned the identity of the beautiful blonde woman his master always looked after so hungrily Micheletto had been surprised, but not overly troubled.

Micheletto would have let them stay there longer but there was a flavor to the air that he did not like and he could see dark clouds forming on the horizon. He allowed his master to glimpse and motioned him over with a jerk of the head.

"My lord, I believe a storm approaches. We must find you and the lady shelter." His gravel voice was pitched low so that Lucrezia could not hear them.

Cesare finally noticed the change in the weather and agreed. "Is there a place nearby where we can take shelter? My sister's horse can be skittish."

"I believe there is a small villa owned by a relation of the Farnese close by."

"Let us go then." He apprised Lucrezia of the situation and they left a scant time later.

The Villa that Micheletto led them to was a small stone house that seemed to be part of the surrounding hills. The master of the house was away, a female servant of middle years informed them.

"This Lord and Lady need shelter for the night and they would be most grateful if you could accommodate them." Micheletto jingled a money purse in temptation. With the common folk it was often more effective to offer money instead of threats. What were threats of death, after all, to someone who faced death every year if the harvest failed or if a traveler brought back the plague.

"My master would not like it." The woman weakly protested, but her eyes followed the motion of the purse in Micheletto's palm. She could buy her remaining son a warm woolen cloak with just a few coins.

"Your master need never know. We shall be gone in the morning and you shall have coin to keep your bones warm this winter."

"Well it would hardly be right to let them catch their deaths. Come in. I shall send my son to the village to get wine and bread for your supper. We are not prepared to host such as you." The woman, Marta, was a good hearted person of middle years, and she bustled about preparing a meal and seating them in the small dining hall.

The meal they shared was humble, but merry. Micheletto dined with them and Lucrezia effortlessly charmed him, drawing the man into conversation when he would normally have remained silent. The storm that had driven them here raged outside and they could hear the eerie scraping of a tree branch against the walls of the house. Although it was only sunset, the sky had darkened to the black of night and the rain pounded. Cesare relished the opportunity to be with Lucrezia without pretense. He toyed with the hair that she had left unbound down her shoulders as he sipped his wine.

"So Micheletto, as one who knows all of the secrets in my family, as we indeed as wicked as some say?"

Micheletto snorted into his wine. "I'll not speak of the rest of your family," and he looked at his master with a spark that might have been amusement "But I have seen many wicked men and that stain is not in you, my lady."

"Even…" Her voice trailed off and her eyes cut to Cesare.

"I know little of love, Lady, but in my eyes it is never wrong." This conversation cut a little too close to secrets he kept so he decided to end it. "I will see that someone sends a messenger to one of our friends in Rome so your family does not worry. But we will need to leave in the morning. I bid you goodnight." Micheletto told the pair and left.

"My love, I believe you scared him off." Cesare laughed, his teeth flashing white in his tanned face. They had finished eating the brown peasant bread and cheese and Cesare pulled her onto his lap for a lingering kiss.

"Would that we could stay like this forever," she whispered into his ear. "I am your wife tonight."

"And we can wake and see the sunrise together."

"Could you be happy someplace like this? We could keep riding in the morning and they would never find us." She knew it was impossible but her heart rejoiced at the idea he had once made in jest. To love one another openly. To wake up every morning in his arms.

Cesare laughed bitterly. "Our father would seek us out no matter how far we went unless he saw our bodies. No my love, we have to return. You to your son and husband and me to whatever our father has planned. But.."

"But?" she prompted.

"If I can gain a territory to rule then I will find a way to have you by my side and damn them all."

"Then I will pray for a kingdom for you, my dear." Her eyes were very serious as she looked at him.

He hugged her close. "For us." He scooped her up in his arms and called for Marta. "My lady is tired after our difficult ride. Where shall we sleep?"

The woman led them to a chamber that obviously served the master of the house. Although it was much plainer than any of the rooms they were accustomed to the bedclothes were clean and the fire that the woman made drove the storm chill from the air. Marta bid them goodnight and then left.

He laid her gently on the bed, as he had many times before, and began taking his clothes off leisurely. Time did not press on them and he was determined to enjoy the respite. Once naked he joined her on the bed and helped her remove her layers of clothing. He pressed a kiss on every spot of flesh as he revealed it. There was a sweetness to his lovemaking that brought tears to her eyes. He worshipped every part of her with his lips and his gentle fingers, and not until she was so roused that she was practically begging him did he move inside of her body. But he took his time even then, stroking and caressing her but never moving fast enough to bring them to ultimate pleasure until both of their bodies were slick with sweat. And then, when their strength was almost failing after loving so long, he moved inside of her so strongly that she could feel him touching the very heart of her. Spent, he lay trembling in her arms and she whispered the words to him that filled her heart. "If everything else was gone, I would be content to melt into dust here with you."

They fell into slumber immediately and Lucrezia slept peacefully throughout the night because her hands never needed to search him out. They remained wrapped tightly around her.

The grey of early morning woke her and she opened her eyes to see him watching her with a smile. His hand curved around her neck and brought her close. "We must be gone after we break our fast," he said, and he brushed his lips across hers.

"We need not be about yet." She smiled at him, and then smiled wider when he gathered her closer to his waking body. Her hands busied themselves learning him in the morning light.

"No, not yet."

"My dears, what a time you had. I am so glad that you have returned."Vanozza was impeccably dressed as always when she joined them for the midday meal when they had returned to the city. If concerns for her children had plagued her it did not show on her beautiful face.

"You should not have worried Mother. There was no danger." Lucrezia's smile was radiant as she looked at her brother. "It was a marvelous time."

Vanozza glanced from her son, who held Lucrezia's hand as though he could not bear to let it go, to her daughter. "I imagine." She pointedly looked at Lucrezia's hands until Cesare relinquished it. Her eyes swept over the pair, missing nothing. "Cesare, my dear, could you go get another bottle of wine? This does not suit me."

Cesare looked at his mother. "Say what you need to Mother. We have no secrets between us."

"Yes, I can tell." Vanozza stood up. "Your father needs no more hint of scandal. See that your actions do not bring any more accusations against his papacy." She laid her hand on Cesare's shoulder for a moment before taking her seat again.

"Is that all you have to say?" Lucrezia asked her mother, incredulous.

"About what?" Vanozza smiled brilliantly, and raised her glass in a toast to her children. No matter what else they were, these were the children of her heart and nothing they did would ever change that.


End file.
